Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran, 1370-c. 1500

The Timurids and the Turkmen

The Timurids’ ancestor, Timur (Tamerlane), belonged to a branch of the Turkic-Mongol Chagatay clan, which had settled in Central Asia. He had married a Mongol princess whose family was supposed to have been descended from Genghis Khan. Like the Mongols, Timur amassed an enormous realm within a short span of time. From his capital of Samarkand, he conquered Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan in 1370 and carried out victorious campaigns against the Mamluks in Syria and the Ottomans in Anatolia. In the southeast, he and his troops penetrated far into India, where they plundered Delhi, and only his death in 1405 put an end to a campaign in China. Timur’s empire was divided up among his many relatives, as the Turkic and Mongol tradition for inheritance prescribed. As a result of this fragmentation and pressure from Turkmen tribes, the Timurid Empire was soon reduced to Central Asia and the eastern part of Iran.

Various nomad Turkmen groups were among the many Central Asiatic peoples that were forced westward before the Mongol advance in the first half of the 13th century. At the beginning of the 15th century, some of them were able to occupy the Timurids’ lands in the west. The Aq Qoyunlu (white sheep) Turkmen became the region’s leading power for a short time under the great commander Uzun Hasan, whose dream of an empire was stopped by the Ottomans in Anatolia in 1473. After his death, the realm quickly disintegrated because of dissent among his successors and pressure from the Ottomans and Iran’s new power, the Safavids.

Under the Timurids, Samarkand and Herat played an important role for long periods as both capitals and art centers. The Timurids were great patrons. They commissioned enormous building projects and founded workshops that employed captive artists and craftsmen. The diversity of their background is reflected in their artistic output, but the influence of Far Eastern culture is especially characteristic. Often very colorful Timurid art features Chinese mythical beasts and flowers, and the forms of ceramics were also inspired by Chinese porcelain. Numerous Timurid princes were themselves calligraphers and great bibliophiles. They founded workshops to make costly manuscripts, and Timurid miniature painting from Herat in the 15th century is considered one of the culminations of Persian painting.

Timurid art had a decisive influence on Ottoman and Safavid art, both through booty taken in war and through the artists who were captured and worked for the new rulers.

Timur’s western campaign began when he seized most of Syria from the Burji Mamluks and destroyed the city of Baghdad. He then demanded that the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid exchange both Ahmad, the Jalayirid ruler of Iraq and Qara Yusuf, ruler of the Qara Qoyunlu in Tabriz, who had taken refuge with the Ottoman sultan, for one of Bayezid’s sons.

When Bayezid refused to do this, Timur gathered a great army and marched into Central Anatolia. Bayezid was soundly defeated by Timur at the battle of Ankara, on the site of what is now Ankara’s airport, on 27 Dhu’l-Hijja 804 H (28 July 1402 AD).

He, his wife Despina and two of his sons were taken prisoner and the Ottoman army fled in panic. Bayezid died the following year, having lost most of the territories that he had gained in the course of his reign.

As was the custom with Turkish dynasties, he had no designated heir, and he left five quarrelling sons whose twelve-year struggle for what remained of the Ottoman territories is known as the Great Interregnum – Fetret Devri. Bayezid’s fourth son, Muhammad (Mehmed) Chelebi, who later ruled as Mehmed I, escaped capture by Timur, but he did not escape humiliation.

He is thought to have displayed his submission by striking this akce which bears only the name of Timur as Supreme Sultan. This and another akce struck in Bursa in 806 H, struck in the names of both rulers, are the only occasions when an Ottoman ruler is known to have issued a coin honouring another sovereign.

Mehmed probably considered that this act was a political necessity, but it may have been a condition that Timur laid down when he accepted Mehmed’s allegiance.

The kalima was restored to the obverse after a lapse of nearly a quarter of a century, and the names of the four “Rightly Guided” Caliphs were inscribed, as they were on other Timurid coins.

Timur imposed a form of tribute from the Ottomans by having this piece struck at 1.49 grams, considerably heavier than the usual 1.15-1.20 grams. This would certainly have pleased his troops when they received their pay, as well as the Aq Qoyunlu forces who had helped Timur win the Battle of Ankara by deserting the Ottomans to fight on his side.